Means for facilitating removal of cover strips of frost shields



Aug. 27, 1940. ooo 2,212,726'

MANS FOR FACILITATING REMOVAL OF-COVER STRIPS OFIFROST SHIELDS Filed Aug. 18, 1937 /G./ 3 3 2 3 3 A A I'm/ela ?for IVABEY Ci Arwoo /17- ToeNEY' Patented Aug. 27, 1940 PATENT OFFICE MEANS FOR, FACILITATING REMOVAL OF COVER STRIPS OF FROST SHIELDS Harry C. Atwood, Minneapolis, Mirm., assignor to Durkee-Atwood Company, Minneapolis, Minn., a corporation of Minnesota Application August 18, 1937, Serial No. 159,674

2 Claims.

This invention relates to improvements in frost shields, or clear Vision shields, of the dead-airspace type, ordinarily comprising a piece of glass or other transparent material having spacer and scaling strips adhesively secured thereto in deadair-space-iorming relation. The glass is usually rectangular and the spacer strips are overlapped at the corners. The outer faces of the spacer strips are covered with tacky adhesive, and cover strips such as Holland cloth are removably held by the tacky adhesive, said cover strips being thus adapted for stripping off to eX- pose the adhesive so that the shield may be attached by merely pressing these adhesively coated surfaces against the wind shield.

An object of the invention is to provide means whereby removal or stripping of these cover strips will not destroy the sealed relation between the spacer'strips and the glass.

The spacer and sealing strips in these devices are generally four in number and the ends of these strips are sealingly overlapped, with or without mitering, at the corners of the rectangular plate. the user, to gain access to the ends of the cover strips by putting the thumb nail or finger nail under the cover strips, at the corners, to raise them suificiently to be held between the thumb and forefinger while stripping by motion from the end toward the middle of the spacer strip. This has resuIted in pulling of the spacer strips away from the glass plate, thus destroying the seal which is essential to the anti-frosting function of the shield.

The present invention provides means whereby the cover strips can be unfailingly removed without destroying the seal.

Features of the invention include all types of Construction shown, along' the broader ideas of means inherent in the disclosure.

Figure 1 is a face View of a frost shield illustrating one embodiment of my invention;

Figure 2 is a cross section through the pullup tab, on line 2-2 of Figure 1;

Figure 3 is a longitudinal section on line 3--3 of Figure 1;

Figure 4 is a perspective View showing` how one form of my invention acts on the inner ends of the cover strips to accessibly position them to be stripped by motions towards their outer ends;

Figure 5 is an enlarged View showing the overlapped relation of the spacing andsealing strips at the corner;

Figure 6 is a transverse section similar to Figure 2 showing how the invention is applied to Heretofore, it has been necessary for' 'Figure 7 shows a modification of the means associated with the inner ends of the strips to :facilitate access by the fingers for stripping out- `wardly toward the corners of the shield.

Objects, features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description of the drawing, and in said drawing,

Numeral l indicates a polygonal, in this case rectangular, sheet of transparent material such as glass having combined spacer and sealing strips 2 adhesively secured thereto by adhesive, not shown. Numeral 3 indicates a cover strip which is ordinarily made of Holland cloth, and which is held to the spacer strip by usual tacky adhesive, not shown.

My invention includes the use of these cover strips for each spacer and scaling strip. The inner ends of the cover strips of each spacer strip are disposed about midway of the ends of the spacer strip and there is associated with the inner ends of each pair of cover strips means to facilitate access' of these ends by the fin-- gers, whereby each cover strip may be stripped by a motion toward the outer end and toward.

the corners of the shield. In this instance the overlapping of the spacer strips is 'by mitering but overlap may be had in other ways. The point is that stripping from the outer ends toward the middle is objectionable for the reasons before mentioned. In Figures l-, 2, 3, 4: and. 6 is shown one embodiment of means for facilitating access by the fingers and it comprises a tab lil of cover material which is interposed between the cover and the scaling strips as shown, and which projects laterally as at ll to be grasped by the thumb and finger so that it can be pulled upwardly as shown in Figure 4 whereby to correspondingly raise the inner ends i i of the cover strips, Whereafter by grasping an end between thumb and forefinger it can be stripped away from the middle towards the overlapped ends of the spacer' strips, thereby positively preventing any corner lcosening of the spacer strips to (ie-o stroy the dead-air-sealing function.

The tab !0 or its equivalent can be applied at the corner, and 'the claims are intended to cover its application at that point to facilitate lifting. The preferred form of the invention is however the use of two cover strips to each spacer strip. i

Figures 1 to 5 inclusive show a special form of strip which is not claimed herein but which because of its structure is particularly liable tobe pulled away -from the glass or injured under conditions where it is necessary to start stripping of the cover strips inwardly from the corners. This strip is cross sectionally rectangular and the two opposite faces !6 of greatest area are adap-ted respectively to be attached one to the glass and the other to the wind shield. Inwardly from each face H the material is slitted as at !8, the slits extending substantially more than half" way through the material. The slits are parallel to one another and to the faces lE. This form of strip is covered in a co-pending application to another inventor now Patent No. 2,l11,343, granted Mar. 15, 1938, and is of course not claimed herein. However, the present invention has a special application to this form of ,strip because its structure 'is such that it might be more easily torn or injured when an attempt is made to remove cover strips, by putting thumb nail under the strips at the corners.

In Figure 6 any ordinary form of strip is intended to be indioated at Za because, whatever form of strip is used, the old scheme of beginning stripping at the corners is, when the thumb nail is depended upon, obviously objectionable.

In Figure '7 is shown a modification of means associated with the inner ends of the cover strips for facilitating access by the fingers for stripping. In this case instead of using the interposed tab 10 the ends of the strips 3 are widened to provide laterally projecting portions 2@ one for the end of each strip. As shown in the drawing, the ends of the cover strips are overlapped merely to facilitate their application in covering position. It

is of course obvious that the inner ends of the cover strips could be abutted and that their outer surfaces, at the joint, could be coplanar, as shown in Figure 3. The laterally projecting portions 20 facilitate access by the fingers. It is understood that this embodiment can be applied at the corners also.

I believe myself the first to conceive of the idea of stripping outwardly from any point which is intermediate of the ends of a spacer strip, for the purpose of avoding the difiiculty mentioned herein, and also believe myself the first to associate any means with the strips, either at the corners and in the region of the overlap of the spacer strips, to facilitate stripping without breaking of the seal, in a frost shield structure of the dead-air-space type. My invention prevents breaking of the seal, and that is the gist of it. Therefore, I consider the expression "means associated with to refer to any and all means which may be used for this purpose.

I claim as my invention:

1. A frost shield comprising a transparent plate, spacer-and-sealing strips Secured thereto by adhesion and having a free adhesive surface, cover strips joined end to end on said spacer-and-sealing strips, and removably held thereto by said adhesive surface, and means for lifting the adjacent ends of said .cover strips from the scalingand-spacer strips, comprising a tab of cover strip material, said tab being Secured to the spacerand-s-ealing strip beneath the adjacent ends of said cover strips in a position to be ove'lapped by the ends of said cover strips. g

2. A irost shield comprising a transparent plate, spacer-and-sealing strips Secured thereto by adhesion and having a free adhesive surface, cover strips joined end to end on said spacer-andsealing strips, and removably held thereto by said adhesive surface, and means for lifting the adjacent ends of said cover strips from the sealingand-spacer strips comprising a tab of cover strip material having an overhanging grip portion secured to the spacer-and-sealing strip beneath the adjacent ends of said cover strips in a position to be overlapped by the ends of said cover strips.

HARRY C. ATWOOD. 

